Programmed Psychosis is BS. Here's how I beat it.
I hope you can forgive the yap.
Hello, over the past 5 days I've been grinding A New America on hard mode trying to get the Programmed Psychosis achievement and if Steam analytics are to be believed I spent ~20 hours total trying this achievement, on average each attempt only lasting around 3-5 minutes each, so probably around 300 attempts total. Over the course of these I tried using each different shotgun with different attachments, I tried the LVAR, I tried the heavier battle rifles like the RTWC and M14, I tried using the shield and MK-V with a laser, I tried ceramic, I tried steel, I tried light and heavy versions of both, I tried essentially everything people recommended. I learned the positions of enemies, I learned how to bait them with flashlights and the IR tripwires, I tried different routes, I tried basically everything.
And today, I finally got it doing the dumbest thing possible that I haven't seen people recommend yet: Flash launcher with a pistol.
Now before I get into specifics I just wanna say, the one thing I've learned is that this is not a skill-based achievement, it is a luck-based achievement. No matter what your strategy is, if you get the right configuration of enemies, if you don't get one-tapped when they see you, if you don't get caught out in situations you literally couldn't have avoided, you can make it doing pretty much anything. That said, skill, strategy, planning, and map knowledge undoubtedly give you an edge, but just always keep in the back of your mind, this achievement is bullshit.
With that out of the way, here's the skinny: Light Steel Armor, Front+Back. Two mags of G18 ammo equipped with either sight, flashlight optional. The rest of your ammo shoved into your flash launcher with maybe one in lockpick gun for speed, but otherwise all flash launcher ammo. I recommend against putting a sight on your flash launcher, it can obstruct your line of sight and frankly you just don't need it. It sounds stupid but genuinely, the amount of times I'm slow-peaking a door and an enemy hid inside the sight itself and one-tapped me is insane. Also mirror gun. She's just required.
Functionally this build is based on one simple concept: Flash the fucker, shoot him in the head while he is stunned. Every enemy even on hard can be stunned, and the radius of the flash launcher means you can stun these guys without having to peak them, so do that. Still take advantage of intentionally setting off IR triggers and using flashlights to check rooms or bait them out, but that's the idea, flash and headshot.
Now the name of the game is speed. As I said this is luck-based, so to a degree just rolling the dice as quickly as you can and dying within 3 minutes on the third floor is better than painstakingly clearing the entire second floor only to get gunned down the second you walk up the stairs by a guy hiding behind a plant or who just so happened to open a door and blast you. I took the approach that by basically speeding through the second floor as fast as possible I usually took out 2 or 3 of the 6 on that floor getting to the stairs, and then you can spend the rest of your time on the actual hard part which is clearing the 3rd floor and trying to make it up the stairs of the 4th without dying. No point wasting your life on the 2nd floor if the 4th is the hard part.
But yeah otherwise its a pretty normal run. Cross your fingers, peak doors looking for traps but otherwise mirror gun or just swing it open and flash if you see anything. You will still die a lot, this is just to give you an edge, but again its just RNG at the end of the day and if you hate playing with this setup its more important that you play in a way you enjoy. Eventually you'll get it, you just need to get lucky, and the more you fail the more you learn each floor and where enemies can and often are, which gives you a bit more of an edge. This achievement sucks, honestly I don't recommend it. But if you do try, I hope my method helps.
P.S. You may still have to do some dumb peak bullshit for the final courtroom before triggering the device. Mine had 5 enemies surrounding the guy and I knew I couldn't flash and kill them all, so I had to do some weird ground leaning to just headshot them one by one. As long as you stay out of the room you can shoot these guys, it saved my run. Good luck!